Kaizen
Chameleon Enthusiast
From years of keeping Japanese koi, I know that young, vigorously growing koi can eat up to 5% of their body weight per day. Once they pass the 15” mark, this can slow down to 3-4%, and as full grown, 30” adults, this can be as low as 2%.
SO WHY THE ____ don’t we have these kinds of numbers for chams? Someone, somewhere, figured out these proportions for fish, and the rule has been borne-out for at least 100 years. Yes, there are still sources that measure food intake for koi in terms of how much they consume in x number of minutes, but anyone worth their salt in the koi hobby knows his/her percentages, and sets their auto feeders to deliver this much daily, with growth and weight gain compensated for on a bi-weekly or monthly basis.
So again, what the heck are we doing in the hobby here? Not trying to bash anyone here, but the fact that we still say to feed x number of crickets per day, or y number of roaches etc.—without any mention of the size of cricket, roach, super, waxie, etc—is pretty straightforwardly embarrassing. Wouldn’t it be better to know that, e.g. 4-5 grams of well gut-loaded feeders/ounce of body weight/day is an appropriate amount of food?
For all those who are intent on playing devil’s advocate:
1) Yes I know Koi are a single species and Chameleons are myriad, but since about 80% of captive chameleons are simalrly sized panthers and veileds, I don’t see why this is a problem. Furthermore, my intuitions are that once this is figured out for veiled and panthers, there’ll probably be some easily discerned amendments for Parson’s, Jackson’s, etc. Or, at least, something we can dead-reckon on the fly.
2) Yes I know good quality commercial koi food is much more fabricated and controllable than crickets, but the percentages for koi were worked out over a century ago, when there weren’t any commercial diets, and the Japanese breeders were using raw, natural ingredients. If they could figure it out using silkworm larva, fresh water shrimp, rice and cabbage, then this shouldn’t be a problem either.
3) Yes I know the easiest reply here is, “OK hot-shot, you figure it out, and report back to us!” But that seems like something for which the onus should fall on someone other than a relatively new hobbyist with a modest collection.
In short, why isn’t there some loose recipe that says, “if you have a veiled or a panther, under one year of age, feed it approximately x grams of well gutloaded insects/oz. of body weight/day. If an adult, then use y grams?”
yeah, Challenge issued...mic drop!
SO WHY THE ____ don’t we have these kinds of numbers for chams? Someone, somewhere, figured out these proportions for fish, and the rule has been borne-out for at least 100 years. Yes, there are still sources that measure food intake for koi in terms of how much they consume in x number of minutes, but anyone worth their salt in the koi hobby knows his/her percentages, and sets their auto feeders to deliver this much daily, with growth and weight gain compensated for on a bi-weekly or monthly basis.
So again, what the heck are we doing in the hobby here? Not trying to bash anyone here, but the fact that we still say to feed x number of crickets per day, or y number of roaches etc.—without any mention of the size of cricket, roach, super, waxie, etc—is pretty straightforwardly embarrassing. Wouldn’t it be better to know that, e.g. 4-5 grams of well gut-loaded feeders/ounce of body weight/day is an appropriate amount of food?
For all those who are intent on playing devil’s advocate:
1) Yes I know Koi are a single species and Chameleons are myriad, but since about 80% of captive chameleons are simalrly sized panthers and veileds, I don’t see why this is a problem. Furthermore, my intuitions are that once this is figured out for veiled and panthers, there’ll probably be some easily discerned amendments for Parson’s, Jackson’s, etc. Or, at least, something we can dead-reckon on the fly.
2) Yes I know good quality commercial koi food is much more fabricated and controllable than crickets, but the percentages for koi were worked out over a century ago, when there weren’t any commercial diets, and the Japanese breeders were using raw, natural ingredients. If they could figure it out using silkworm larva, fresh water shrimp, rice and cabbage, then this shouldn’t be a problem either.
3) Yes I know the easiest reply here is, “OK hot-shot, you figure it out, and report back to us!” But that seems like something for which the onus should fall on someone other than a relatively new hobbyist with a modest collection.
In short, why isn’t there some loose recipe that says, “if you have a veiled or a panther, under one year of age, feed it approximately x grams of well gutloaded insects/oz. of body weight/day. If an adult, then use y grams?”
yeah, Challenge issued...mic drop!
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thats a start : Back in the days animal right were kind of low and people did experiment by putting animal in hard condition and many KOI have been probably sacrified for the good of the knowledge (by comparison.. so many humans have been sacrified during the world war 2 with experiment putting human in inhuman condition.. and lot of our medical knowledge come from the WW2 experiments :/) 
